Tuesday, December 12. 2006

Democratic leaders declared a temporary moratorium on special-interest provisions known as earmarks as they attempt to cope with a budget crisis left by the outgoing Republican-led 109th Congress.

Congress adjourned early Saturday, having completed work on two of the 11 spending bills for the 2007 fiscal year that began Oct. 1. As a short-term fix, lawmakers extended current funding levels until Feb. 15. But the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees announced yesterday that they would extend current levels until the 2008 fiscal year begins next Oct. 1.

This is a great idea. A way of making it even better though would be to drop the "for now" and change "freeze" to eliminate in the title. Then it would be "Democrats eliminate earmarks." That would be something to get excited about. The fiscal mess our country is in needs every little bit of help to dig out of and eliminating the earmarks would be a good way of doing it.

I guess freezing them is better than nothing. Weaning the states off the Federal Pork for a while is a nice start to the fiscal problems our country has. I wonder what their next idea will be?